1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of information handling system optical media, and more particularly to a system and method for optical media marking.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
As information handling systems have become more common and have improved in the speed at which they process information, increasing amounts of information have been generated for storage. Optical media provide a sensible and relatively inexpensive solution for storing large quantities of information on a portable material. Generally, an optical medium stores information by altering the reflective qualities of a data layer material with a focused laser and allows retrieval of information by reflection of the focused laser against the altered material to measure the reflected light characteristics. A typical optical medium disc is made from polycarbonate having a uniform thickness of approximately 2 millimeters. Initially, infrared lasers used to write to CD optical media focused through the surface and most of the thickness of the material to write information, as is depicted by FIG. 1A. With the introduction of red lasers to write to DVD optical media, the laser focus moved to a point mid-way through the surface of the material, as is depicted by FIG. 1B. The most recent development for writing to optical media is the use of a blue laser to write with high definition or Blu-Ray formats. Blue lasers focus closer to the surface of the polycarbonate material, as is depicted by FIG. 1C. Essentially, as laser wavelengths have decreased, information is physically written closer to the surface of the polycarbonate material in part so that a smaller laser focus spot will allow greater amounts of information to fit on optical media of the same physical dimensions, such as the same diameter and thickness.
Although optical media provide a convenient and portable storage solution, one difficulty faced by users of optical media is tracking the contents on any given optical medium without having to insert the medium in an information handling system to read the contents. Read-only media, such as movies and albums, often include labels stuck or painted on the non-storage side of the optical medium. However, such markings generally cannot have a thickness that changes the physical dimensions of the optical medium so that the optical medium will be accepted by standardized disc drives. Further, permanent marking at manufacture does not provide a marking solution that an end user may implement for writable and re-writable media that stores various information. To address this difficulty, optical media labeling solutions have emerged that write labels on the non-storage label side of an optical medium through the interaction of the laser with a chemical coating. However, label writes with a laser are often time-consuming. A more common but less elegant solution is to write a label on the non-storage side with a permanent marker.